Check out "Pretty Wolves" by D/Wolves, an awesome band fronted by Joel Williams (who happens to be the little brother of Wavves' Nathan Williams). 

Margaritas!

Summer is the perfect excuse to drink, as my friend Alex calls them, "top shelf margs". And we have been drinking a lot of top shelf margs. Here's my favorite recipe, which is super easy to make, and uses a frozen limeade can to measure everything.

First, gather:
Triple Sec
Tequila
Frozen limeade
Limes
Ice

Put the whole can of frozen limeade into the blender, add a quarter can water, a quarter can triple sec, and a half can tequila. Squeeze in the juice of 1 lime, then toss in some ice. Blend it up! Coat the rim of your cup in lime juice, dip it into kosher salt, and fill with delicious, delicious margarita. Enjoy, ideally, with chips and guac. 

Artist Feature: Hellen Jo

I am really obsessed with Hellen Jo, self-described "asshole living and working in Burbank". She does awesome drawings of badass chicks, among other stuff, and says she's "informed mostly by alternative comics and midcentury as well as modern illustration".

"Bay Area Native", inspired by the Daniel Johnston song, “Devil Town”.

"Pool Skate"

Oh yeah, she also made this Crash & the Boys poster, so really, what more do you want?

Spring Break: Chicago

I went, on a total whim, to Chicago for Spring Break last week. I got to see old friends, the Art Institute, and just make a general escape from Colorado Springs for a few days. It was incredibly and shockingly hot for Chicago in March, I was in shorts the whole week! I got to see my friend Ben, aka Constant Smiles, play a show at this neat venue/loft/recording studio/some guys' house called The Observatory. In between sets, everyone went up to the roof for cigarettes and an incredible view of the Chicago skyline. You can actually find a recording of the show on Ben's website, the album is "Live, right straight from the grave."

Stage/bar at The Observatory

I saw some awesome things at the Art Institute, which is one of my favorite museums because of their extensive Impressionism collection, and bangin' modern art wing.

chairs and lights in the modern wing.

Surprise! It's an awesome Magritte.

Joseph Cornell

The basement had an awesome textiles exhibit, featuring hilarious and incredible samplers like this one, "wrought by Clarissa Emerson, aged 14."

Overall it was a great trip, and I was sad to come home, as I always am when I leave a city.
I will sign off with Ben's cat, Lolita, my new love. (cats can't read, so Marcel won't be offended by my feline infidelity.)

Cat Shoes

For obvious reasons, I have been coveting Alexa Chung's favorite shoes, these Charlotte Olympia kitty flats. She wears them everywhere, and I would too, if they weren't Charlotte Olympia, and therefor $400.

So, as anyone DIY obsessed would, I thought to myself: I'm going to make them. And it was super easy, and super worth it. I bought plain black suede flats from H&M, embroidered the faces, and sewed on some felt ears. I think they came out awesome.

These are mine!

So Fresh and so Clean

I love making soap. It's fun, it saves money, and it makes great gifts. I have made soap completely from scratch before (meaning I start with actual lye), but it's much faster and less treacherous to just buy glycerin from a craft supply store, and then add to it.
For my last batch of soap, I melted a big pot of glycerin, then transferred it to several smaller bowls so that I could add things and make a few different scents.
For cinnamon clove soap, I added a few shakes of both ground cinnamon, and ground clove.
For honey ginger, I melted some honey into the liquid glycerin, then added a few shakes of ground ginger.
For lavender chamomile, I brewed some chamomile tea and added a few tablespoons to the glycerin, then added some lavender flowers (which I actually found at Hobby Lobby).
For oatmeal honey, I melted honey into the liquid glycerin, added a few shakes of ground ginger, and then added a couple tablespoons of steel cut oats.
For orange peel, I added a few shakes of dried orange peel, and a couple drops of orange essential oil.
I let my soaps set in rectangular soap molds, but you could also use plastic yogurt or cottage cheese cups. You can really use a lot of different household items for soap molds, as long as they're plastic.
After my soaps set (usually takes at least 45 minutes), I wrapped them with this cool wood gain-printed paper I had, and labeled them with stamps.

honey ginger, oatmeal honey, cinnamon clove, and lavender chamomile.

wrapped soaps!

Knitting Inspiration/Infuriation: Wool and the Gang

Inspiration: Wool and the Gang. It's an incredible, high-end company founded by two women, of beautiful knitted stuff. Sweaters, bags, scarves, you name it. Celebrities are obsessed, I'm obsessed. In addition to offering ridiculously over-priced knitted goods, they also sell ridiculously over-priced kits, with everything you need to make any of their designs. The kits include needles, Peruvian wool yarn, and the pattern.
Infuriation: The ridiculously over-pricedness. It is so hard to find patterns online that are fashion-forward, simple, and modern. It seems most of these pattern websites haven't updated since the mid-90s. And while I love browsing Ravelry.com, it is hard to find anything I really want to knit. I love everything on the Wool and the Gang website, but who can shell out upwards of $100 for a simple sweater pattern? Not I. My goal now is to find similar, more affordable (free) patterns at other websites that I can alter, and/or try to recreate these Wool and the Gang beauties from the photos. I'm glad that knitting may be getting popular and upscale, but I would love to see a website of patterns that are equally pretty and modern, but reasonable for the budgets of actual knitters.

Las Vegas

This past weekend, I was in Las Vegas for my cousin Chantry's wedding! I'd never been before, and it was incredibly, overwhelmingly kitschy and wild. I love kitsch, though.

The best claw machine I've ever seen, which Mia promptly won from. It's a skill, not luck. At least someone brought home some winnings.

Caitlin and I enjoying our sweets from the Jean-Philippe Patisserie in the Bellagio.

I had a trio of deliciousness: a peanut butter cake pop, rosewater and raspberry macaroon, and creme brulee, on a solid chocolate plate.

Paris!

Mia and me having margaritas outside Caesar's Palace!

Very excited about my Topshop purchases. It's the only Topshop that I've been to in the states, and it just happened to be opening day! They were handing out $20 gift cards to everyone who showed up, and blasting insane music.

The wedding luncheon was delicious, and the gardens outside the restaurant were beautiful, decorated with these flowing tents and pretty lamps in all the trees.

I did make it to In-n-Out Burger, at midnight, the night before we flew home.

Design Love: Fine Little Day

I love design blog and store by Elisabeth Dunker, Fine Little Day, which describes itself as "a sprawling and happily inconsistent company and blog based in Gothenburg, Sweden."

Cheesecakes in a Jar

I've been very into the concept of baking things into jars lately, because it makes cleanup and storage so much easier, and it looks pretty cute. I tried it out today for the first time with cheesecake, and I recommend it!
Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups of crushed graham crackers
1/4 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of melted butter
3 8oz packages of cream cheese, softened
1 14oz can of sweetened condensed milk
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
some mason jars, whatever size you like. (the batter makes enough to fill about 8 pint sized jars.)

First, crush your graham crackers. I find it's easiest to crumble them a bit by hand into a big ziplock bag, then crush them by rolling a rolling pin over the bag. Combine the crushed graham crackers with the sugar and melted butter, then press into the bottom of each jar. I ended up with a layer about 1/4 inch thick, but you can use as much as you want. Save some of the graham cracker crust mixture for the top of the cheesecakes, if you like.
Next, make the cheesecake batter! Start by blending the cream cheese until it is fluffy, then slowly blend in the sweetened condensed milk until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Add the eggs and vanilla, then blend again.
Spoon the batter into the jars, but don't fill all the way to the top. At this point, I added some more of the graham cracker crumble to the top.
Put the jars into a fairly deep baking dish, then fill the baking dish with boiling water, until the jars are submerged about halfway. It's a cheesecake bath! Put the whole mess into the oven, at 350 degrees, and bake for around 25 minutes. You may have to adjust this time depending on what size jars you're using. Mine were half pint sized, and 25 minutes was just right. You want the cheesecake to still jiggle a little bit, but have inflated a bit on the top. Carefully remove the pan, and pop the jars into the fridge, until they're cold and delicious! If you're not a cheesecake purist, you can top them with berries, sauce, chocolate chips, or whatever your heart desires.

terrarium

I've been on a plant kick lately, and I made this little "terrarium". I put "terrarium" in quotes because the only animals living in it are tiny plastic jaguars.

I got Marcel one of those cat dancers with the feathers on the end. His favorite thing to do with it is chew on the stick end. Why do I try?

A paper by one of Nigel's kindergardeners:

Check out: Barna Howard

I've been really enjoying the newest self-titled release by a friend of Nigel's, Barna Howard. The album comes out officially tomorrow, and is available to purchase on Amazon or the Mama Bird Recording Co. website either as an MP3 download, or a vinyl album with free MP3 download. You can listen for free to one of the singles, Promise I Won't Laugh, on Barna's bandcamp website.

Pierre

I'm in Intro to Psychology this block (CC is on the "block plan", which means we take only 1 class, or block, at a time, for 3 and 1/2 weeks, meeting for several hours a day), against my will, and to satisfy the lab class requirement at CC. Being an Art History major, I try to stay as far from the maths and sciences as possible, but psychology should be pretty interesting, because it is a subject that can be related to really any other subject. My first assignment is to train the world's most adorable rat to do several tricks, like pushing a lever, and rolling a marble down a track. My partner and I got the smallest (and cutest) rat, and named him Pierre.

Here he is getting used to his new training box:

The Great Escape

Yesterday was a bit of an adventure, as my roommates told me in the afternoon that my darling cat Marcel had escaped from the house, and had been gone since the night before. He's not supposed to be an outside cat, so I was pretty panicked, and set out searching the neighborhood with some cat food, accompanied by our other cat, Ira. (side story: during the search, Ira actually jumped into our neighbor's car through an open window. I've never seen a cat do something so bizarre.) After a fruitless search and a few more hours of waiting, I put up a few signs and a posting on Craigslist. Through my research, I learned some interesting things about lost indoor cats:

1. They are usually close to home, hiding under something small.
2. Sometimes they wait until dark to try to find their way home.
3. Putting something outside the house with your scent on it can help the cat get back.

So I put some cat food and an un-chewed cardboard box, which Marcel can't resist, on the porch and continued to wait.
That night, as I left the house to go see Nigel, Marcel came prancing in the door like nothing had happened. His giant tail was full of tree sap and pine needles, so he must have climbed a tree.
Today he has been recovering in his cat tent.

Marcel in the cat tent.

His most recent box chewing project.

Check out Nigel's good friend, and maybe consider making a donation!

A new art project: cat scans

The cats provide valuable feedback on my guitar progress.

Ira

Kiki really does not want me to write this paper about late Ming dynasty Chinese Buddhist figure painters.

DIY cat treats

Well, I've officially gone both DIY crazy, and cat crazy. Seriously, though, if you need cat treats on the cheap, just whip 'em up yourself!

Whole Grain Cheesy Tuna Treats

You need:
1 can of tuna packed in water
All of the water drained from the packed tuna
3 Tablespoon cooked, chopped egg whites
1/4 cup powder-style parmesan cheese
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup water (as needed)

To make:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Mix the tuna, tuna water and egg whites (I fried mine up in a pan first). Add the flour, and parmesan cheese. If the mixture is still too dry to form a dough, add water in 1/4 cup increments until the consistency is good enough to knead into a ball. Once you have your stinky fish ball, roll it out to 1/4 inch thick. Cut into one-inch sized pieces, or try a cookie cutter! Bake at 350 F for 20 minutes. Feed to kittiez.

DIY Sugar Scrub

Today I made my own sugar scrub! It was insanely easy, and smells delicious. All I did was pour about a cup and a half of raw sugar into a bowl, added about a half cup of olive oil (I used just about enough to coat the sugar, but you're welcome to use less if you want a more scrubby scrub, or more if you want a more moisturizing scrub), added about a teaspoon of vitamin E oil, a few drops of orange essential oil, and voila! I found and old jar, cleaned it out well, and filled it with the scrub. I find it works really well on those little bumps of the backs of my arms.

Thanks, Vin.

Everyone is all abuzz about Vinny from Jersey Shore sharing publicly that he battles anxiety disorder, and the difficulties that life as a reality television star can cause for someone prone to anxiety. As an avid Jersey Shore watcher (I'm sorry. I don't know how it started, but it's gone on this long, so here we are.), I watched two episodes ago when Vinny's anxiety came to a head and he decided to leave the Shore. I felt both saddened, and proud for a number of reasons. His exit was emotional, and what was equally emotional was his best friend Pauly's heartwarming, sincere reaction of sadness and care.

Never before in popular culture have I seen two men, not to mention men whose reality personas rely on their giant muscles, promiscuity, and other stereotypical markers of masculinity, being so honest and open about their feelings, their struggles, and their love and friendship for one another. Pauly and Vinny opened up a discourse about male friendship, and Vinny opened one up about the reality of anxiety disorder and depression, problems which many understate the severity of, problems which can be viewed merely as "unmasculine" and "weak". He also set a good example by doing what was best for his mental health, and leaving an environment of excessive partying, little privacy, and social stress.

Following his departure from the show, Vinny gave a special appearance on MTV further explaining anxiety disorder, how it has effected his life, and his decision to leave the Shore. He has also appeared on a PSA for a suicide prevention foundation. Besides just making it easier for me to defend my watching of Jersey Shore weekly, I think these recent events have been incredibly important for mainstream culture and the "MTV generation" to start thinking about gender issues and psychological disorders.

If you want to watch the episode, it is episode 2 of the current season of Jersey Shore, and is available to stream on MTV's website, as is Vinny's interview about anxiety.